Once emerged in 1990s, the local media outlets contributed to the empowerment of local democracy and the productivity of local public services as well as becoming the voice of local people and their values. Despite their positive effects on the local communities, these media outlets started disappearing one by one since they could not invest in new broadcasting technology given the increasing costs above income. The main motivation for the meeting was the negative conditions that had pushed many local TV and radio stations out of business.
In an attempt to discuss the challenges and solutions, TIMEF brought together the local media outlets from the local communities of Anatolia at Rixos Hotel in Ankara, in 2012. The discussions during the meeting led to a report that specified the problems and provided recommendations for the solutions. The report was then submitted to the speaker of the Turkish Parliament (TBMM), the minister responsible from media, the ruling party, and the opposition parties.
Based on the demands emerged at the meeting, the media community considered broadcasting through the Turkish satellite operator TURKSAT. However, high satellite capacity fees and limited budgets of local media outlets led TIMEF to establish Anatolia Networks Platform to seek for other alternatives of broadcasting. As a result, TIMEF pioneered the platform’s agreement with ASTRA, animportant internationalsatellite service provider in the world. The agreement involved rental fees less than the half of TURKSAT fees that enabled the TV stations of Anatolia networks to broadcast through ASTRA.
The agreement signed between Anatolia Networks Platform and ASTRA motivated TURKSAT to decrease capacity rental fees to local broadcasters in Turkey. Some members of the network started broadcasting through TURKSAT by the end of their contracts with ASTRA. As a result, the efforts of TIMEF also helped TURKSAT to gain new local TV broadcasters as customers.
Today, the competition environment contributed by TIMEF local TV stations (though still limited in number), broadcast through TURKSAT channels in Turkey.
